When an insured vehicle is damaged and a vehicle insurance claim is made, typically a representative of the insurance company or carrier (e.g., an adjuster, assessor, or other agent) assesses the damage and generates an estimate of a settlement payment from the insurance company to a repair facility for repairing at least some portion of the damages to the vehicle, e.g., a “settlement estimate” at the insurance company/repair facility interface. This preliminary settlement estimate can include an initial list of parts that are thought of or initially determined as being needed to repair the vehicle. Typically, this initial list is generated by a representative or agent of a repair shop or insurance company/carrier manually generating the list based on his or her own experiences, e.g., by free response and/or by checking off boxes on a pre-populated list or form. This initial list may be provided to or used by a particular repair facility that is to perform the repair work.
In many cases, upon performing its own inspection of the vehicle or upon tearing down the vehicle, the particular repair facility finds additional damage that was not identified in the estimate provided by the insurance carrier, as, for example, the repair facility is able to further access the vehicle and perform a more thorough examination than could an adjuster who generally writes estimates based only on damages he or she can see, discern, or identify first-hand. When damages and/or costs that were not indicated in the estimate are discovered, the repair facility requests an additional monetary amount or a “supplement” from the insurance carrier corresponding to the newly identified damages and/or costs. In particular the repair facility may request additional monetary amounts for additional parts that are required to repair the vehicle, where the additional parts were not included in the initial list of parts provided by the representative of the insurance company.
In some situations, the insurance carrier agrees to the supplement amount straightaway, and in some situations, the insurance carrier negotiates with the repair facility to agree on a set of authorized additional repairs/parts and an amount of the supplement to cover the additional repairs/parts. For some claims, more than one supplement may be requested during the claims resolution process, for example, when still additional damage is uncovered, when replacement parts are difficult to find, and for other reasons. An example description of settlements and supplements of vehicle insurance claims is provided in aforementioned, commonly owned U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/168,345, entitled “SYSTEM AND METHOD OF PREDICTING A VEHICLE CLAIM SUPPLEMENT BETWEEN AN INSURANCE CARRIER AND A REPAIR FACILITY.”
Other monetary amounts or costs may be generated during the vehicle insurance claims resolution process. For example, an estimate and an actual final cost of parts needed to repair the damage to the vehicle may be generated by the claims resolution process, and/or an estimate and an actual final cost of labor to repair the damage to the vehicle may be generated by the claims resolution process. Additionally or alternatively, a final settlement or payout amount to be paid by the insurance carrier to an insured party may be generated or produced by the claims resolution process.